My first foray into business was import-export. It seemed simple: Buy item A and then sell it for a premium. As you can imagine, this was very faulty simplistic reasoning and a recipe for disaster.
When i was greeted with the opportunity of importing cheap imitation dual sim mobile phones from overseas, I was ecstatic. Sure, the screen had terrible resolution and they looked like cheap knockoffs, but they were cheap. More importantly, I could import them and then sell them for double the price. Let's have a look at where I went wrong:
Mistake 1: I was very close to importing a bulk quantity of product without determining market demand. When I did end up surveying potential customers, not a single person was interested in purchasing the phones. Suffice to say, I would have been seriously screwed if I hadn't done some last minute due diligence. I would forget this lesson later on and get burned by some worthless products :eusa_naughty:
Mistake 2: I literally assigned arbitrary values for the sale price of the products. Also, my definition of 'cheap' was subjectively biased. The lesson to be learned here is that you should investigate your product/service more carefully to determine it's true worth.
Mistake 3: I let emotions obscure my judgment. Although not entirely relevant to the mobile phones, I later started to import products that I thought were 'cool' or useful to me. The logic was: If I don't sell them, I'll just keep them.
In hindsight, these mistakes seem incredibly amateurish and unbelievable but so many people make similar mistakes. They venture out and import/create products or services that have no market or perceivable value. Although I eventually managed to import and sell products properly, I learned some very basic rules the hard way.
In the end, I might have lost my time and a bit of money but I learned a very important lesson: Identify market demand/value before jumping into any business!
I hope my blunders were a helpful learning experience
:cheers:
When i was greeted with the opportunity of importing cheap imitation dual sim mobile phones from overseas, I was ecstatic. Sure, the screen had terrible resolution and they looked like cheap knockoffs, but they were cheap. More importantly, I could import them and then sell them for double the price. Let's have a look at where I went wrong:
Mistake 1: I was very close to importing a bulk quantity of product without determining market demand. When I did end up surveying potential customers, not a single person was interested in purchasing the phones. Suffice to say, I would have been seriously screwed if I hadn't done some last minute due diligence. I would forget this lesson later on and get burned by some worthless products :eusa_naughty:
Mistake 2: I literally assigned arbitrary values for the sale price of the products. Also, my definition of 'cheap' was subjectively biased. The lesson to be learned here is that you should investigate your product/service more carefully to determine it's true worth.
Mistake 3: I let emotions obscure my judgment. Although not entirely relevant to the mobile phones, I later started to import products that I thought were 'cool' or useful to me. The logic was: If I don't sell them, I'll just keep them.
In hindsight, these mistakes seem incredibly amateurish and unbelievable but so many people make similar mistakes. They venture out and import/create products or services that have no market or perceivable value. Although I eventually managed to import and sell products properly, I learned some very basic rules the hard way.
In the end, I might have lost my time and a bit of money but I learned a very important lesson: Identify market demand/value before jumping into any business!
I hope my blunders were a helpful learning experience
:cheers:
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